The Last Honest Man

by Lynnette Kent

  AS A MEMBER OF THE LEAGUE of Women Voters, Cynthia encouraged political interest, discussion, even disagreement. But tonight, she did not look forward to the traditional candidate’s dinner. This was the moment she had dreaded since Adam first took leave of his senses—the moment she would have to sit and listen to him fumble his way through a public statement.

  “I don’t think I can do this,” she told Preston as they dressed. “How ever will I sit there calmly, watching him expose himself and us to ridicule and pity?”

  Preston came to where she sat at the dressing table and put his hands on her shoulders. “I don’t believe this evening will be as bad as you anticipate, darling. I’ve been present at a couple of events where Adam spoke. I thought he did well.”

  “Was his…disability…evident?”

  “He stuttered now and then. But overall, I thought he came across as a clear thinker and a reasonable speaker.”

  “Perhaps in a forum where he doesn’t suffer comparisons. But tonight, he’ll be facing Curtis Tate, who speaks very well, indeed. And we will have to endure the smug sympathy of our friends and acquaintances.”

  Only traces of that condescending pity were available when she and Preston arrived at the country club for the dinner. The candidates in the upcoming election—including city council members, judges and the sheriff’s office—had formed a receiving line, and Adam made as handsome a figure in his dinner jacket and bow tie as a mother could wish. Several friends stopped by Cynthia after meeting him to congratulate her.

  “So impressive…he certainly looks the part of a mayor.”

  “That smile makes you forget his…problem.”

  “I wish my son wore his clothes so well. Too bad…”

  Cynthia smiled and said all the right things, as she’d been taught to do. When she finally approached Adam, she felt tense enough to scream.

  “Hello, son.” She gave him her hand, and leaned in for a kiss on the cheek. “How are you?”

  “J-just fine. You look b-beautiful, as always.”

  “Thank you.” She glanced around them as if searching for someone, although she’d noticed the absence of his fiancée quite some time ago. “Where is Miss Moss? Couldn’t she join us tonight?”

  His brow furrowed in a way she’d seen in her mirror a thousand times over the years. “I expect her to arrive any m-minute. She was d-definitely planning to b-be here when we talked last.”

  That might have been before the Raffle Committee meeting. While Cynthia thought Kellie Tate had been rather heavy-handed in the way she made her point, she’d also been quite effective.

  “I’ll look forward to talking with her later.” Cynthia turned on her heel and took only a few steps before running into Mayor Tate, and his wife.

  “I’m looking forward to the Botanical Gardens dinner dance tomorrow night,” he told Cynthia, and gave her a wink. “I’m bringing a blank check from the city to match your total.”

  “That will be fabulous. Kellie has certainly done her share to make this fundraiser a success.”

  Mayor Tate put his arm around his wife’s waist. “She’s a special girl, all right. Great organizer, terrific at analyzing a problem and coming up with the solution. I couldn’t do my job without her.”

  Accepting the compliments, Kellie smiled sweetly and blushed prettily, though Cynthia knew from experience that behind the butter-wouldn’t-melt smile sat a steel-trap mind. Curtis Tate owed fifty percent of his success to L. T. LaRue, and a good chunk of the rest to his wife.

  And, in this campaign, to Cynthia DeVries.

  Keeping an eye on Adam throughout dinner, she saw him leave the room several times, only to return to his seat next to an empty chair. Phoebe Moss had evidently decided to dismiss the League of Women Voters.

  “Without even a phone call of regret,” Lilah Semple, the current president, murmured in Cynthia’s ear. “I’m sorry to say this to you, Cynthia honey, when the girl is your future daughter-in-law. But such manners! Certainly not what I’m used to in our young women.”

  The same had happened, Cynthia learned a few minutes later, at the Association of Women Realtors’ luncheon. “Just didn’t show.” BeBe Holtz had stopped at her shoulder to say hello. “Left us all sitting there with nothing to do but talk about the lousy state of the market. I’ve never seen a group of women so depressed.”

  For a moment, Cynthia wondered if perhaps her reception at Kellie Tate’s house this morning had been so demeaning that Phoebe Moss felt she couldn’t face the rest of her engagements that day. The girl had done serious damage to her reputation, not to mention Adam’s campaign, on top of that horrible article in the Sunday newspaper. Of course, in suggesting to the various women’s organizations that they invite the candidates’ wives and fiancées to speak, Cynthia had hoped for just this sort of debacle. But it did look tonight that perhaps she’d pushed the girl a bit too far.

  Nonsense, she decided as the plates were cleared and the speeches began. If Phoebe Moss couldn’t stand this kind of pressure, she certainly wouldn’t be suitable as the mayor’s wife. Or the wife of a DeVries, with a long and outstanding tradition of service to the community to uphold.

  And the sooner everyone knew and recognized that fact, the better for all concerned. Including Phoebe Moss.

  THE VETERINARIAN HAD COME, pumped mineral oil into Marian’s stomach and examined her as far as he was able. She most likely had some sort of intestinal blockage. All they could do was make her more comfortable with pain-killers, keep her on her feet and hope the block would dissolve or pass through with the oil. Sometimes, colic wasn’t a major problem. Sometimes the horse didn’t survive. And only time would tell which case they had on their hands tonight.

  Phoebe had been standing beside her horse for most of eight hours, petting, talking, watching carefully for the smallest change in Marian’s behavior. They must’ve walked ten miles in a circle around the house, hoping that motion would stimulate the action of the horse’s bowels. Marian showed no interest in cropping grass, no interest in her favorite alfalfa hay, or even grain. When left to herself, she hung her head, breathing hard against the pain. Eventually, she dropped to her knees, then flipped onto her back, twisting and rolling in discomfort.

  “No, Marian. No.” With a crop and her voice and a few well-placed kicks to Marian’s rear, Phoebe got the horse on her feet again. “A twisted intestine is the last thing we need, mare. Then you’d be going into surgery, for sure. Let’s walk some more.” Her feet ached, her back screamed. But she wouldn’t stop walking until Marian was out of danger.

  The vet returned, poured more mineral oil down the tube in Marian’s throat, then left again with the promise to be available if needed. Jacquie and Erin came over and gave Phoebe the chance to go to the bathroom, feed the dogs and cats, and grab a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. Together, they all walked another couple of miles around the house in the cold night air.

  And still, Marian’s beautiful white head drooped almost to her knees, her dark eyes dull and half closed against a pain Phoebe couldn’t ease. For once, she’d come up against a situation completely out of her control.

  ADAM SAT DOWN TO A HEARTY round of applause from the League of Women Voters and their guests. He didn’t interpret the response as a promise of votes, but at least he’d done a decent job with tonight’s address. His stutter sneaked in now and then, but he’d learned not to panic, which only made things worse. Thanks to Phoebe, he could relax and move on.

  Where was she? They’d met for breakfast and managed a few private words before separating for the day. Tonight, she seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. Tommy, of course, was furious at the missed lunch with the women Realtors, and now the dinner. Adam simply worried.

  His opponent finished up a hearty speech, acknowledging a warmer reception than Adam had received, and then the evening, thank God, was over. Adam worked his way through the crowd, no easy task when he got stopped every two feet by a handshake, a question, a pat o
n the back. He’d almost reached the door when he encountered the most formidable obstacle of them all.

  “Mother.”

  She and his dad were waiting for him. No way he could hurry past with a smile. “Good job, son.” Preston gave him a clap on the back and a handshake. “You’re giving Tate a run for his money.”

  “I’m d-doing my b-best.”

  His mother cut to the heart of things. “Miss Moss had something better to do?”

  “I d-don’t know. I can’t find her.” He’d left so many messages on her machine, the tape was full.

  “Strange behavior for a candidate’s future wife.”

  “I’m sure there’s an ex-explanation.”

  “Besides rank bad manners, you mean?”

  “Yes.” He kept the answer short, trying to hold on to his temper.

  But his mother wasn’t going to be satisfied with anything less than an all-out confrontation. “I must say, I feel I’ve been put in a very awkward position. My future daughter-in-law doesn’t even have the grace to notify an organization to which I belong that she won’t be accepting their generous invitation.”

  “You surely d-don’t want to argue about this right here, right now. So I’ll j-just say g-good-night.” He attempted to step past, but she caught him by the arm.

  “I will not be ignored.”

  Adam glanced around, saw that their encounter had been noted, was being observed with interest. Swearing under his breath, he put an arm around his mother’s shoulders and walked her across the hall, into the small room where brides could change clothes at their wedding reception.

  Standing in front of the shut door, he faced Cynthia again. “That’s what this is all about, right? You gave an order—don’t run for mayor. But I didn’t follow orders this time, and you c-can’t handle it.”

  “I have told you—”

  “Oh, I know you think you have reasons. They never m-made any sense, but that’s beside the point. You want c-control, Mother. You sent Tim to m-medical school, told him to be a c-cardiologist, told him to come home to start his practice. You sent Theresa to law school and brought her back again. Your expectations of me were a lot lower, but I got my education at a good engineering school and came back to start a construction company, as you decreed. God knows, if you hadn’t liked the idea, Dad wouldn’t have given me the start-up loan.”

  Preston had followed them into the room. “Now, son—”

  Cynthia stood staring at him, her face as rigid as her spine. “Are you finished?”

  “No. You’ve sabotaged my campaign with your friends, and your comments to Samantha Pettit about Phoebe were aimed at more destruction. I doubt that’s all you’ve done.” He saw her eyes flicker, and knew he’d hit the mark. “You’ve been cruel to Phoebe, organizing your minions against her. All because I wouldn’t be a good boy and do as I was told.”

  He shrugged and put his hand on the doorknob. “That’s too damn bad, Mother. I might win this election, or I might lose. Either way, I guarantee that you’ve already lost.”

  Stepping out into the hall, he closed the door behind him. The crowd had thinned considerably, and he made his escape with only a few delays. Once in his truck, he dragged off his bow tie, threw his jacket in the back and headed straight for Swallowtail Farm.

  The locked gate he took as a good sign, and used the key Phoebe had given him just this week to get through. But when he got to the house, the picture changed. Lights were on in every room, but the door was locked and the only answer to his knock was the howling of the three dogs. He checked out the empty barn and turned off the lights left blazing there. In the darkness, he could see the horses in the pasture much better—Cristal, Brady and Robin. But no white ghost. Where was Marian?

  Heedless of his dress shoes and pants, he climbed the fence and walked the pasture, in case she’d fallen and he couldn’t see. The other horses moved uneasily around him, and Adam didn’t think they were reacting to his presence alone. He didn’t find Marian. Something had happened to the lovely white mare.

  He called Jacquie Archer, but struck out there, too. The best he could do was a strongly worded message on her answering machine. “Somebody let me know what’s going on. Please.”

  As he drove back to town, his mood swung between concern for Phoebe and her horse and an impotent rage. Once again, she’d faced a crisis without asking for his help. Damn her independence, anyway…. She trusted him enough to make love with him, but still intended to handle her problems without his help. Their future together couldn’t possibly stand on such a shaky foundation. Might as well build a house out of cardboard boxes on the edge of the ocean.

  His answering machine offered no message from Phoebe. He called Tommy. “Wake up. Have you heard from Phoebe?”

  “No, dammit. And some notice that she wasn’t going to show would have saved me an earful from bitchy rich women. Where is she?”

  “I don’t know. One of her horses is gone—I suppose they took her to a vet, but I don’t know which one.”

  “Too bad. She’ll call you, though. Just hang tight.”

  “Sure.”

  “We’ve got breakfast with the insurance guys at nine.”

  “I’ll b-be there.”

  The campaign would go on. He had a shot at winning, if no new disaster arrived to torpedo his chances. Of course, his mother would never forgive him for his defiance. And his dad always took her side. Preston DeVries had been so grateful to marry a woman who ran all aspects of his life outside his medical practice that he’d abdicated any kind of authority at home. He had opinions, but he rarely fought for them, and never against his wife. Tim would probably be the same. And Theresa would take after their mother. She was definitely the woman in charge.

  Adam wanted control of his own life. The thought struck him hard, and he considered the idea as he might study a complex blueprint. Phoebe wanted the same for her own life. She’d escaped her family and come to New Skye for just that reason.

  Two lives, two people determined to go their own road. Where, how did they merge? Did one of them have to give up the right of way?

  Sick of metaphors, sick of thinking, Adam dropped his clothes where he stood, turned off the light and climbed into his cold bed. Sleep wouldn’t come. But with his face buried in the pillow, he could pretend it might.

  PHOEBE SPENT THE NIGHT at the vet’s office, in a chair outside the stall where he was fighting to save her horse’s life. She dozed off and on, her head back against the concrete blocks, but always woke in a few minutes to check on the mare. Despite repeated doses of oil, Marian remained blocked, bloated, miserable.

  “If something doesn’t change by noon,” the vet warned, “I think surgery is our only hope. And even that’s no guarantee of recovery.”

  Jacquie and Erin had driven Phoebe into town last night with Marian in their horse trailer. They came back about ten Saturday morning to see how things were going.

  One glance told the farrier all she needed to know. “We fed and watered and let the dogs out at your place. I had a message on my machine from Adam, Phoebe. Do you want me to call him?”

  She’d thought about him all night, and dreamed about him when she closed her eyes. The whole situation seemed completely hopeless at this point. Phoebe had no illusions about the damage she’d done yesterday, abandoning her obligations without so much as a phone call. She had tried, using her cell phone on the drive home, but her shaking hands, her teary eyes and the fear in her gut had made safe driving as much as she could handle. Once she’d seen poor Marian’s agony, her mind had blanked on anything else.

  So what happened now? She doubted that she alone could sink Adam’s campaign. But there was little question in her mind that her life simply could not, would not, blend with his. She would lose herself, lose everything she’d worked so hard to build. To be. Perhaps if he lost the election…

  She’d had that thought once before, but Phoebe wouldn’t wish for him to lose, not even to be with her. He’d take
n on the campaign because the fate of his hometown mattered, because he wanted a part in improving the place where he lived. A woman who loved him would not take that dream away. And she did love him.

  In the stall, Marian heaved a huge, groaning sigh. Erin, standing beside the mare, looked out the door. “Phoebe? Phoebe, something’s happening.”

  “Come on out, Erin,” Jacquie said. “She may try to roll…”

  The girl slipped out of the stall. Before the door slid closed, Marian groaned again.

  Then came a sound like the smack of a baseball against a wooden fence. And again. Phoebe gazed in through the barred window as the huge blockage that had made poor Marian so miserable was finally expelled, spattering the walls around her like well-aimed mud balls. Just like that, the nightmare ended.

  “Sand and dirt” was the vet’s assessment. “Happens sometimes, for no reason we can figure. She should be just fine now, ready to go home Monday morning.”

  Marian already looked a thousand percent better, having sipped at her water bucket and found the hay Phoebe put for her in the rack. Her eyes were calm again, her face placid. With a final hug, Phoebe left the stall and stepped back into real life.

  She’d missed the appointment she’d made to get her hair done, so she was on her own as far as the dance tonight was concerned. Jacquie and Erin dropped her off at the farm and she walked up the drive, newly grateful for the beauty she lived with. Marian would come home Monday and everything would go back to normal. More or less, depending on whether you considered a mayoral campaign normal life.

  Her first move, after feeding the dogs and cats, was a call to Adam. She got his machine, of course, and left an apology, with an explanation of sorts. Who knew what his schedule was for today, and when he would check for messages? They’d decided she would drive into town and meet him at his place to go to the dinner dance. Would she show up to find him furious at being ignored? Worried out of his mind?

  Or, most likely, just ready to give up?

  SAM HAD VERY SPECIFIC goals for her evening at the Stargazer Fundraiser. She intended to glean as much information as she could on the political situation, eavesdrop on every conversation she could get within earshot of, and do her best to forecast the election based on the knowledge and insight of the power brokers in New Skye, all of whom would be there.